How To Write A Script Without Any Paper

It’s in here.. somewhere.

If you are like most people, you go out and shoot the elements of your film or video.

Then you come back and sit down for the tedious task of video editing or film editing.

This generally begins with logging your footage.

You actually sit and transcribe what you have shot into text.  Timecode and shot notes.

Maybe you even transcribe the interviews.

Then, when that is done, you will talk all that text and write out a script.

Then, when the writtens script is done, you will take that written script and go back to Avid or Final Cut and turn that written script back into a video or film.

This is… insane.

Insane.

Nothing is more destructive to the creativity and power of video than transmogriphying the medium from video to text to video.

It is as though you told Picasso, ‘hey man, before you can pick up a brush, I want you to sit down and write out an essay of what the painting is going to look like.  No seriously.  Don’t touch a brush until you have written the whole thing out.’

‘Well… OK.  There are going to be these kind of angular heads with triangles…’

Get the problem?

This is what you are doing when you log and transcribe. So stop it.

What I want you to do is just start laying out your scenes on the timeline on FCP or Avid by visuals.  This means, in a very rough sense, just grab the first image you want to appear – the most powerful one, and slap it on the timeline.  Don’t worry about shots or narration or soundbites or anythign else. Just instinctively grab it and slap it up there. What ‘happens’ first?

Then.. what ‘happens’ after that? Where is the STORY going?

Visually, where do we want to be next.

Then next.

And so on.

Just visuals. Just scenes.  Very rough.

Do you remember the movie ‘Minority Report” with Tom Cruise.  How he grabbed stuff from the air and slid it around? That’s what I want you do to:

editing…

OK.

Now, once you’ve got your visuals all lined up in a rough way, I want you to take the soundbites you like and slap them in where you think they go best.

Just grab them and drag them down onto the timeline.

Good.

Once that is done, I want you to sit back and watch the cut – it’s very rough, I know.

Now, I want you to watch the cut as though you had never seen it before. The way your viewer is going to see it.

Now, while the cut is playing, I want you to tell me the story.  Narrate it – as you are watching it. Explain it to me.

This is your narration

Record it

You can do this on FCP.

Now, do you see what you have done?

You have ‘written’ a script

Digitally.

You have used the power of the Timeline in Video Editing Software not just to edit, but you have used the video editing software as a script writing tool.

Now go back and tighten it up and you are done.

Do you see how simple this is?

And how utterly elegant?

Try it.

You will be amazed at how much time you save and how much better your films and videos are.

You can learn how to do this and much more  at www.nyvs.com